American Go E-Journal » 2014 » May

The Chinese School at Chapel Hill Team won the 2014 Team Tournament and Changlong Wu 7d once again topped the Individual Competition in the 2014 Carolina Spring Go Tournament. The 11th annual tournament, held in Raleigh on May 11th, was organized by the Cary Go Club and the Chinese-American Friendship Association of North Carolina, and attracted over 20 go players with a wide range of ages. Owen Chen directed.

As expected, the team competition generated a lot of excitement, with youth players eagerly checking the scoreboard during the breaks between rounds. In the end, the defending champion, the team from the Chinese School at Chapel Hill, won the title with all members winning their individual competition sections. “That this year’s team, comprised of Andrew Zhang, Colin Zhang and their teacher Changlong Wu, were completely different people from those of last year’s team demonstrated the depth of the pool of go talent at the Chinese School of Chapel Hill,” reports Feng Ye of the Cary Go Club.

In the individual competition, Changlong Wu 7d, the highest-ranked player, defended his championship with a perfect score of 4-0, without much surprise. “We were happy to see a new face to AGA, Mr. Hanbo Zhang,” adds Feng Ye. “He took second place by beating two five-dans and one four-dan, losing only to Wu.”

Besides being on the winning team, Andrew Zhang 9k won Section A (9k-1d) with a score of 3-1. Alvin Chen 10k won Section B (15k-10k) with a score of 3-1, and the runner up in this section is Steven Manning 11k, with the same score of 3-1. Another member of team competition winning team, Colin Zhang 17k, topped Section C (30k-16k) with a perfect score of 4-0. Alex Kuang 16k won the 2nd place in this section.photo: the Chinese School at Chapel Hill team, with TD Owen Chen at right

Ukraine: The Victory’s Day Tournament finished May 11 in Odesa with Yevhen Kolodin 5k in first, Valerii Liverinov 1k in second, and Oleh Folomiiev 12k in third. Norway: Also on May 11, Jakob Bing 3d took the Oslo Open while Paal Sannes 3d placed second and Micael Svensson 2d came in third. Serbia: Nikola Mitic 5d (left) bested Dusan Mitic 6d at the 17th Serbia International Cup on May 11 in Nis. Mijodrag Stankovic 5d was third.– Annalia Linnan, based on reports from EuroGoTV, which include complete result tables and all the latest European go news; photo courtesy of EuroGoTV

Wien 2014, Vienna’s annual international go tournament, will be held June 20-22 at the Vienna Waldorf school. The top ten players will receive cash prizes with additional cash prizes for the best female player and the best player under 18. Book prizes will be awarded to players with 4 or 5 wins. Discounted fees are available for group rooms at the Jugendgästehaus Hütteldorf youth hostel (500 meters from the playing site) for players who register before May 21. In addition to the main tournament, Wien 2014 will be the final stage of the European Professional Qualification and a bonus point tournament, in which top players can accumulate bonus points used as qualification for future higher-level tournaments. There will also be a free tour of the city on Friday evening. To register or for more information, please visit the official Wien 2014 website.

The Russian Go Federation will host this year’s European Women’s Go Championship in Kazan on June 27 through June 29. European Go Federation players are welcome regardless of title or rank and there is no limit to the number of participants per country. However, one representative from each country (EGF rank 5k or stronger) will have compensation for travel expenses and free accommodation at Hotel Regatta. In addition to the main tournament, this year’s EWGC is a qualification event for the SporAccord World Mind Games in Beijing. To register or for more information, please visit the official EWGC 2014 website.

The fourth annual Young Kwon National Online Tournament – or YKNOT 4 — will take place on KGS on June 21st, 22nd, and 28th. The YKNOT is a national online tournament sponsored by Young Kwon, a former US Open Champion. With a total prize purse of nearly $3,000, the YKNOT is one of the largest western online go tournaments and is open to all levels. Any AGA member resident in the US for 6 out of the last 12 months or any AGA life member regardless of residency, can compete for free. Registration is FREE; click here to register for the tournament. Registration will close at midnight on Friday, June 20th. Once a week beginning Friday, May 23, the “See Who’s Playing” document will be updated with current tournament registrants. If you would prefer not to be listed in this document prior to the tournament, please indicate this by email to the Tournament Director. Stay tuned for more tournament details.

The first online North American Masters Tournament (NAMT) qualifier of the 2014 season will be held on June 7-8. The tournament has been dubbed “Age of the Fabulist” by organizer Karoline Burrall, “to celebrate the birth of Jean de la Fontaine (right), a French author of fables, or a fabulist, on June 8, 1621.” Click here for details and schedule, as well as the link to registration, or click here to register directly. Players must be eligible for NAMT and register by Wednesday June 4th 2014. All participants will earn points towards NAMT qualification, which this year means eligibility for the 9-round US Invitational event at the US Go Congress. NAMT qualified players are eligible for an extra $2,000 in prizes at this tournament. Click here to see current NAMT points standings. “Players may wish to keep in mind the proverb from one of de la Fontaine’s fables, Burrall suggests. “’En toute chose il faut considérer la fin,’ or “In all things, one must consider the end.” It is not known whether Mr. de la Fontaine was a go player.

“Rémi Coulom is sitting in a rolling desk chair, hunched over a battered Macbook laptop, hoping it will do something no machine has ever done.” So begins Alan Levinovitz’s thorough report on the current state of computer go in Wired Magazine – The Mystery of Go, the Ancient Game That Computers Still Can’t Win – published May 12. Levinovitz covered this year’s UEC Cup, the computer Go tournament held each March that rewards two finalists with matches against a “Go sage” in the Densei-sen, or machine-versus-man matches. The Wired report covers the history of computer go, name-checking Einstein, Turing and Nash, includes an excellent explanation of the game’s branching problem and explains how the development of Monte Carlo Tree Search enabled the latest breakthroughs in computer go, in which Coulom’s Crazy Stone program won the first Densei-sen last year against Japanese professional Yoshio “The Computer” Ishida. American-born pro Michael Redmond — a regular EJ contributor — makes an appearance in the report as the commentator at the UEC Cup. Levinovitz does a good job demystifying computer go, as well, writing that the view that go is “the final bastion of human dominance over computers” is “deeply misguided.” Levinovitz points out that “computers can’t ‘win’ at anything, not until they can experience real joy in victory and sadness in defeat, a programming challenge that makes Go look like tic-tac-toe. Computer Go matches aren’t the brain’s last stand. Rather, they help show just how far machines have to go before achieving something akin to true human intelligence.”photo: Remi Coulom (left) and his computer program, Crazy Stone, take on grandmaster Norimoto Yoda. Photo: Takashi Osato/WIRED. Thanks to the many EJ readers who quickly spotted this report and passed it along.

The answer to this week’s quiz is not in the title of the four cartoons listed in this week’s quiz; actually, the title of our piece of New York Go history, is referenced in one of these shows: “Hong Kong Phooey”, “Underdog”, “Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales” or “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. Still a tough one, but I hope this helps. Click here to submit your answer.- Keith Arnold, HKA

This study comes from Xuan Xuan QiJing, a 14th century work, which may be the most copied problem set in go. Black plays. The odd nature of the correct move sequence may throw off some stronger players, so that weaker players may actually find the solution faster! Click here to see the solution.
A new problem appears every Monday morning. And for archived problems click here.- Myron Souris, POTW Editor

The US Go Congress has a brand-new logo (right), and to celebrate, organizers are holding a contest. The logo was designed by Michael Samuel, a go player and graphic designer whose work includes logos for The History Channel, Sears, Hillary Clinton, and both the Seattle Go Center and the New York Go Center. The logo features a classic go problem in which the enclosed white stone must escape: all registered players who submit a complete and correct solution to the problem will be entered into a pool, “and one lucky player will win $50 off their Go Congress registration fee,” says Congress Director Matthew Hershberger. Solutions must be emailed to registrar@gocongress.org before the end of May. “At first glance it may seem impossible, but don’t give up!” Hershberger adds.